Rust Never Sleeps

Back when I was in college, there was this dude who would come into the bar I worked at on a Friday night and play fucking 10 Neil Young songs in a row. He would also hit on girls by doing magic tricks. I remember how angry I got every time he made me listen to an hour of Neil Young because I was just trying to have a good time, and he fucking made me listen to this sad, soppy fuck who writes nothing but songs that sound indistinguishable from each other and never seemed to enjoy a happy moment in his entire like. Fuck that guy, and fuck Neil Young. 2/5

Back when I was in college I used to go to a bar and listen to Neil tunes and do magic tricks for women. There was a bartender there, he was the best. I loved that guy. Some of the best years of my life.

Not my favorite Neil Young album, but fuck Joe Rogan.

"It's better to burn out than to fade way" is one of the opening lines of this album, and also its thesis. Side A is Young mourning everything - the death of Elvis, his separation from CSN, his feeling that punk rock was overtaking rock n roll - and it's all set to that familiar acoustic and harmonica set. For Side B, he invites Crazy Horse to join him, and it's almost as if he's trying to burn away the rust. There's a symmetry to this thing, almost a chiastic structure. The first and last tracks are the most obvious pieces of evidence for this, but there are other parallels (Pocahontas and Welfare Mothers, for example). The tight structure and evocative imagery is impressive enough, but hey, it also sounds great. What an album. Best track: My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)

“Rust Never Sleeps” by Neil Young & Crazy Horse (1979) I’m a big fan of Neil Young, but, interestingly, I’ve never listened to this album, primarily because when I was compiling my Neil Young collection in the late 1990s, I generally stayed away from live albums altogether. So this will be a serious listen with fresh ears. If you’re not already a fan of Neil Young, this album is probably not for you. I would suggest “After the Gold Rush” (1970), “Harvest” (1972), “Harvest Moon” (1992), and “Prairie Wind” (2005) instead. “Rust Never Sleeps” is a reminder that if you fail to pay attention to the encroachment of old age, decay will catch up with you. Neil Young was 33 years old when this album was released. Ha. Now he’s 75 and still rocking (and not in a chair). He’s neither burning out nor fading away. The songs on “Rust Never Sleeps” are ‘sandwiched’ between two versions of the same melody and lyrical theme (the acoustic “My My, Hey Hey” and the electric “Hey Hey, My My”). Message: Rock ‘n Roll endures (even if it’s purveyors don’t). Musically, the live acoustic tracks on “Side One” are quintessential Neil Young, whose acoustic guitar style is characterized by carrying melodies on the lower strings, with the higher strings provide color and chord structure. The electric tracks of “Side 2”, performed with Crazy Horse, haven’t aged well. Ironic, isn’t it? Young’s voice is not very good, especially live, but like Dylan and others, he puts his limited vocal talent to effective use in expressing his poetry. And his poetry is usually very good. The overall effect is like sitting around the campfire listening to a good friend do what he can with voice, guitar, and songs that are important to him. In a September 1980 Playboy interview, a famous rock star was asked, “What do you think of Neil Young’s line ‘It’s better to burn out than fade away”? His answer: “I hate it. It's better to fade away like an old soldier [ref. General Douglas MacArthur’s farewell speech to the U.S. Congress in 1951] than to burn out. If he was talking about burning out like Sid Vicious, forget it. I don't appreciate the worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or dead John Wayne. It's the same thing. Making Sid Vicious a hero, Jim Morrison—it's garbage to me.” That rock star was John Lennon, who was gunned down three months later. Young’s original 1979 lyric was part of a reflection on the rise of Johnny Rotten, with an oblique reference to the 1977 death of Elvis Presley. In April, 1994, Curt Cobain concluded his suicide note with “It’s better to burn out than fade away”. One lesson here is that lyrics can have a life (or death) of their own. They can transcend the expressive experience of the writer. Whether the sentiment of this line conforms with reality or not, it evokes serious consideration in an existential crisis. With songs of protest against injustice that would sound clunky to PETA (“Pocahontas”) and feminists (“Welfare Mothers”), Young seems to be departing that genre for the rock of the aged. On “Rust Never Sleeps”, he hasn’t yet arrived. A little disappointing, by still a good Neil Young album. 3/5

Rust Never Sleeps continues to be a gem of an album, shining brightly for all to see how multi-faceted and lyrically expansive he can Crazy Horse can be. I am grateful to have seen them together at UIC years ago, and to see Neil solo a couple of times as well. Mr. Young goes down as one my fav artists of all time. At least one of his records should have been in our stereo console, but somehow my parents missed him along the way. Maybe a little too punk? Can't imagine them catching Sedan Delivery on this album and knowing what to do with it back then :)

I sigh whenever I read Neil Young's name on one of the albums on this list, because I think he is severely overrated. The problem is always the same. The song might start out well enough, but as soon as I hear Neil Young's whining singing voice, I just can't stand to listen any further. Apart from that, on this particular album, I don't care about any of the lyrics, and musically, the songs are nothing to write home about. Must be a 70s thing. Classic Young. 1.5/5

One of best rock albums.... EVER. A genius at his prime

Neil Young is an acquired taste, I admit, but the run of albums he put out from 1969 to 1979 rank among the most consistent and rewarding of any 70’s artist. Everyone Knows This Is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush, Harvest, Time Fades Away, On The Beach, Tonight’s the Night, Zuma…even “lesser” works like American Stars ‘n Bars and Comes A Time were not without career highlights. He was on an unstoppable roll and Rust Never Sleeps is culmination of that period, acting as a bit of a recap of that decades work, but also a glimpse of what was to take over the music world in another decade or so. Split between an acoustic side and an electric side (a fitting encapsulation of Young’s tendencies as a songwriter), Rust is bookended by acoustic and electric versions of the same song, the iconic “My, My, Hey, Hey” and “Hey, Hey, My, My”. The latter features some of the most fuzzed out, grungy riffs ever heard, a good 12 years before the phrase “grunge” hit the cultural zeitgeist. In between the “Hey’s” and “My’s” lie some of Neil Young’s greatest songs: “Thrasher”, the beautiful 12 string acoustic CSN diss-track; “Pocahontas”, a haunting and surreal tale of indigenous genocide, culminating in a meeting between Pocahontas and Marlon Brando at the Astrodome; “Powderfinger”, a dark horse (excuse the pun) candidate for best Neil Young and Crazy Horse song; and “Sedan Delivery”, a rave up alternating between fits of fuzzed out guitar and slower, but still fuzzy, guitar psych. It’s no wonder that Young and Crazy Horse took Sonic Youth on the road for the 1991 Weld tour. The hefty guitar crunch, feedback and guitar interplay on the second half of Rust Never Sleeps shows a shared DNA between the two acts: stylistically and in their uncompromising spirit and artistic visions. If I could travel through time for a concert, a Neil Young and Crazy Horse / Sonic Youth show is near the top of my list of stops. …and while I’m traversing the space-time continuum, my next stop will be 1979 to see the Rust Never Sleeps tour. Neil and the band are formidable here: a lumbering behemoth intent on pummeling anyone in their way. Until I can get my Delorean up to 88 miles per hour, Rust Never Sleeps (and Live Rust) will have to suffice.

This is one of the greatest albums ever made. Let me tell you why in painstaking detail. First of all its fucking Neil Young, the mans the master and you should show some respect, he's been innovating and writing some of the best songs going for over 50 years now. As recently as 2019 I saw him blow Bob Dylan out of the water sharing a stage with him. The man is in his 70's and played for hours in sweltering heat, putting on a show which rocked so hard and was genuinely touching and funny in places without complaint or putting a foot wrong. That's dedication to your craft. Second of all My My, Hey Hey/Hey Hey, My My is one of the most satisfying suites of rock and roll ever made, what a sublime opener and closer. It sets out the mission statement for the acoustic/electric concept so incredibly well but even if one of those two tracks had been on any other album it would have been one of the highlights and he comes up with two variations on the idea that are equally as good as each other? wow. Also the Devo connection (this was written after Young's collaborations with the band, who subsequently did a typically angular version in Young's film Human Highway) gives it some extra mystique and appeal. Also, its better to burn out than to fade away... cmon. Then you get onto Thrasher. An often overlooked part of Neil Young's catalogue but I think its his best song. It feels like the ultimate expression of his love for and lamenting the loss of a certain period of Americana. I find this song so incredibly sad but beautiful and poignant, telling half made up stories and featuring references that you feel like you know from a dream but cant quite place. Its an wonderful rambling warning against globalization and to hold on to things you hold dear. Admittedly the next 3 songs were never going to be number one hits but each is written and executed with signature Neil Young enthusiasm. Then you get to Powderfinger, that first gently strummed electric chord lets you know that the record is going to change from here on. And it delivers, Young's falsetto warbling over the top of this wave of distortion is just so incredibly satisfying in a way that few vocalists have ever managed to pull off. In fact the distorted rhythm guitar tone throughout is night on perfect, its just so full of personality and doesn't cover up any of the detail in the playing while still sounding satisfyingly dirty and heavy. Welfare Mothers features such an amazing call and response chorus and some great guitar work and a brilliant solo which again has a brilliant tone and crucially doesn't outstay its welcome. And boom before you know it you are back at Hey Hey, My My which has one of the ganrliest distorted tones ever. What a record, I love it more every time I listen to it.

This does absolutely nothing for me. My breakfast gave me more emotional resonance.

I just can't ever get into Neil Young's work. His voice just ruins everything.

In which Neil reinvents himself as a punk (which doesn't take much beyond fuzz and volume--he's always been an irascible chap) while slipping in the most lyrical songs of his career. "Welfare mothers make better lovers" and "I searched out my companions / Who were lost in crystal canyons / When the aimless blade of science / Slashed the pearly gates" on the same album, with full commitment to the attitude of both? Masterpiece.

Obviously

3.7 - Impressive as a live recording. The sound mix and quality of performances make it sound like a proper studio album. Lead guitar parts come through powerfully with screaming distortion that gives a paranoid edge to some of the arrangements, especially on "Hey Hey..." Despite the myriad strengths, I think this album is better for diehard fans. Admittedly, I'm not familiar with most of the songs here, and some of them I didn't like on first listen (e.g. "Welfare Mothers", "Sedan Delivery"). Maybe this was one of the SEVEN Neil Young albums that could've been left off this list??

despite being a relatively big neil young fan, i have not listened to a breadth of his music, including this one. what i really liked about this is that this album has a nice balance between neil's acoustic side and hard rock side, which culminates in the bookended versions of 'my my, hey hey' i also enjoyed the fact that it sort of toes the line between live album and studio album. sometimes it feels like it's a studio album, and then the audience noise starts bleeding in. i know neil young can be a bit divisive, but i tend to land on the positive side rather than the negative, and i greatly enjoyed my time with this one.

What I'd give to spend another afternoon enjoying this with my dad. Neil will forever be wrapped up in memories of him. The way the crowd is so small and distant at the end... this show must have been MASSIVELY loud.

It's better to burn out than to fade away... This album obviously had some influence on Kurt Cobain, which is interesting considering this song is mostly related to the end of rock and roll. This album is really good. Nice mix of live recordings and studio recordings with interesting titles and themes.

I will say that, even though I'm never excited to see yet another Neil Young title show up, I have loved all but one so far. I love the acoustic first side more than the amplified B side but the whole thing is very enjoyable. I'm not sure how many more we need but...

Neil Young. Unique voice, fantastic guitarist (good grief, am I ever so sick of decades of "he's not a great technical guitarist, blah blah blah" -- heaven forbid an artist play the instrument differently), and incredible writer who never stops creating and experimenting. One of a kind. Love him.

Obra maestra absoluta y disco capital de la historia de la música. Reivindicación total de que el rock daba para más en plena época post punk y New Wave. La mitad acústica emociona y la eléctrica lo revienta todo. Grandes canciones. Maravilloso.

Totally captivated by the 1st half of this album- there's a rough, raw, nostalgic simplicity here, and I can smell the emotion.

I want to love Neil Young. I really, really do. But I never really liked his voice. That said, he has incredibly solid songs, musically, lyrically, just across the board good music. This album continues that with fantastic songs. Powderfinger alone just blew me away. If not for my aversion to Young’s voice, I’d probably give it 5 stars, but the best I can do is 4 and feel bad about it.

Father Grunge with the classic feedback and raw sound, sprinkle on some simple classics...you get what people love or hate. Powderfinger turn up to 11 please. What an interesting catalog. This isn't the best album but has a couple of classic signature sounds from crazy horse. Raw edgy and classic Neil.

Neil Young is like Dave Matthews Band or U2. Insanely popular, gigantic catalog, extremely dedicated fan base, top rated, yet people come out of the woodwork to let you know they hate them because “they suck”. This isn’t Neil’s best album but it’s damn good.

I didn't realize how grungy Neil Young could sound. He must have had a pretty heavy influence on the '90s.

This is a darn good album. I really don’t think I’ve listened to the acoustic side previously Of course I know My My Hey Hey but don’t think I had heard Thrasher before and it’s a mighty fine song. The electric side I know inside out. Powderfinger, Sedan Delivery and HHMM Pt 2 are all classics. I always thought HHMM was released a few years after the Sex Pistols‘ only album (released Q4 1977) but am surprised to find out HHMM was recorded in 1978. I can’t imagine Neil Young fans during that tour having a fucking clue who Johnny Rotten was. There are already at least 2 Neil LPs that I know I’ll be giving 5s to. This wasn’t on that list. It made a valiant effort to elbow its way on but I’m holding my ground.

Classic Neil Young. What can I say that hasn't already been said? He's got a recognizable sound. He's fine.

Bit mad

You can definitely hear how this is a precursor to grunge. Always solid songwriting with Young.

For a Neil Young fan, this has to be a great album. As a casual fan, it's what i would have expected, however there are some rocked up numbers that make it feel like new territory for NY. I guess that makes it a precursor to grunge? It's decent, but not something I'd reach for. 3.7

meh

Not too crazy about it. I like how it's bookended with the same song, but flipped. Otherwise, songs like Pocohontas and Ride My Llama really took me out of it. I like that I couldn't tell if it was live in some parts though.

Neil Young est quand même bien meilleur sans sa bouteille de tequila dans les parages. Les premiers sons acoustiques de Rust Never Sleeps sont tout bonnement excellents mais leur dynamique sera gâchée par l'arrivée des Crazy Horse qui passeront leur temps à hennir et déféquer sur scène. On aurait préféré une meilleure fin.

Alors que cet album démarrait sur les chapeaux de roues, avec un Neil Young extrêmement touchant, nous transportant à l'aide de sa seule voix et de ses instruments, la suite nous a tous laissé sans voix. Mais laissez moi vous expliquer ce qu'il s'est passé. Tout d'abord, il faut savoir que cet album a été enregistré en live dans une petite salle de concert de Nashville. Cette salle de concert présente une particularité, c'est qu'elle est située en pleine campagne, loin de toute civilisation. Alors que tout le monde s'installe dans la salle, se réjouissant d'entendre Neil Young les bercer de sa voix, un homme va commettre une erreur. Cet homme, c'est l'intendant de la salle de concert de Nashville. Ce dernier avait été mis au courant: il faut absolument que tu fermes à double tour la porte menant vers l'exterieur de la salle de concert. Pourtant, équipé de son crayon à papier dissimulé derrière son oreille, il oubliera ce détail qui lui semblait futile, et laissa la porte entrouverte. Après une dizaine de minutes de concert, c'est la que le drame se produit: une horde de chevaux sauvages fit irruption sur la scène au galot, détruisant tout sur son passage. Le bruit des sabots frappant le parquet de la scène camoufle complétement la voix de Neil Young, ainsi que les différents "Huuuuuuh" jetés ici et là par ces chevaux absoluments déchaînés. C'est dans cette panique la plus totale que les 20 dernières minutes de l'enregistrement se dérouleront, laissant un arrière goût amer à cet album, qui démarrait comme expliqué de fort belle manière.

There are some absolute monster jams on this album. It comes right out the gate with a beast of a song (My My, Hey Hey). But it's also Neil Young so there's a lot of whiney navel-gazing and jingle-jangle acoustic guitar which isn't my favorite. The second half of the album is better IMO. It's the "electric" side of the album (remember when albums had 'sides'?) and it has a lot more guts. While the first half is clearly influenced by country music, the second has more of a proto-punk feel that I'm into. Paticularly "Sedan Delivery" is an unsung deep cut for ol' Neil and is so DAMN good this 'Bama boy can almost forgive him for "puttin' her down" because of this one track.

Oh look. Another Neil young. Out of tune out of time self indulgent blah. He’s not untalented. But he’s not anywhere near the talent the critics say. And the good songs here are not well performed. I’ll admit hey hey my my goes as close to being genius as Neil gets. Both versions. But is it better to burn out than to fade away? Neil seems to have done neither. To listen to great Canadian songwriters, try Gordon Lightfoot, Ron Sexsmith, Tom Cochrane, Joni Mitchell, Bare Naked Ladies or a host of others.

I never understood the cult of Neil Young. The breathless praise of his undying genius by white boy rock snob types borders on a form of mutual masturbation, rivalled only by the fans of Steely Dan. I kind of like his tendency to turn the amps up REALLY LOUD and refuse to tune the guitars. He doesn't suffer from being overly polite, which is a good thing in rock and roll. But I don't dig his voice, and I really feel like his songwriting is vastly over-rated. I just don't understand the way Powderfinger is praised as though it was the greatest song ever written. Really? And I made the mistake of reading some appraisals of Pocahontas, which waffled on about how the ambiguity of viewpoint creates a casual morality and a surreal a journey through the 17th century to the modern day. I think it is just sloppily written, and don't get me started on how he wants to sleep with Pocahontas "to see how she felt". That's just creepy, dude. Stop it. And I just don't dig the whole "better to burn out than fade away". The sentiment has been around in rock and roll for a long time ("Hope I die before I get old"), but Hey Hey My My is a key text in codifying the idea into the rock cannon. But how much destruction and misery has been wrought in service to burning out? I find it hard to believe Neil really believed it at the time and, as he approaches 80, can he still say this with a straight face? As I get older, I am increasingly uncomfortable with the fetishization of human misery in rock and roll.

Na 3 albums nog steeds geen neil young fan

harmonica slay but not really my vibe tbh

i just don't think i'ma neil young person!

Well I think I preferred this to previous NY and crazy horse albums but I did again find it a bit samey. Nothing stood out and just felt like tedious dad rock by the end

This album boasts one of the worst lyrics ever: "It's better to burn out 'cause rust never sleeps." Dull, dull, dull music. Arrangements consist of just strummed guitars--no art or nuance involved whatsoever. Oh, okay, now this is a little better. Ride My Llama at least has some halfway interesting rhythms and chord progressions. Actually, some of these songs aren't bad--there are some decent melodic hooks. The album actually gets better as it goes along. The first two songs were the pits. Neil Young's lead guitar playing on Powderfinger is atrocious. He's totally unconvincing as a rocker. Crazy Horse reveals itself to be a deeply mediocre backing band. 2 stars out of 5 and that's being generous.

Никто не сказал, что альбом состоит из одной песни

One of my favorites from Neil, one of my favorite artists. Perhaps an awkward format with live acoustic followed by an electric half, bookended by different versions of the same (classic/brilliant) song. Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black) and its acoustic sister is possibly my favorite Neil song and objectively one of his best. It of course has a sinister connotation, as its lyrics were blasted by John Lennon as dangerous and supposedly ended up on Kurt Cobain’s suicide note. Both versions are great, but to me the electric version best represents the dark side of rock and roll that it depicts. Pocahontas, Powderfinger, and Ride My Llama are also major highlights.

1979 Pre listen:Obvious classic, always wanted to know more Neil Young Up to Powderfinger- sounds and melodies so familiar it’s hard to imagine it being new Got more and more heavy Album felt short

Once again, it's one of those "classic" albums from my teens that I just never got round to trying. Yes, I'd enjoyed Harvest and After The Goldrush, but RNS passed me by. And it's flipping awesome. Obviously Hey Hey, My My (both versions) are the stand out tracks, but the whole album reeks of awesomeness. Nice to hear a man continuing to explore and experiment.

Ничего особенного

So good. Loved it.

Ride my llama is really good, and Neil Young is the same guy from Heart of Gold, I like that kind of country/folk/rock

Oh boy, David's gonna hate this, but as far as I'm concerned they could just stream this straight into my veins. Just a fantastic album.

the rockier versions of the Hitchhiker tracks are interesting to hear now that we have finally heard that album after 50 years on the shelf... it's really an unreal album - and the second disc is some of the hardest rock he's ever recorded (the live versions on the Weld disc are basically the most fucked up songs I've ever heard) and its no doubt that this is his most influential album (in tandem with ragged glory i suppose) Pocahontas is sorta complicated cuz it reminds me that he has recorded some really important music about Indigenous struggles, and preformed at standing rock and stuff .. but i think ultimately does so in the most white guy way that ends up being a bit distasteful in the long run... that being said i was trying to convince my friends sage and kelsi (who are both Indigenous) that it was actually cool that he wrote these songs like two weeks ago, so look at me now ...

One of the top 10 albums, IMHO

Love this album, since a kid, it’s raw and heartfelt!

Okay, I give up, I'm a Neil Young fan. This is an amazing album and of course it inspired grunge. I can't find anything wrong with it and would go 4.5, but I'm going 5 as it will climb there for me over time.

Out of the blue and into the black... such a fitting description of Neil Young's career trajectory in the 1970s, stumbling upon a gold rush that harvested a plethora of unexpected and unwanted attention that led him to the ditch and, along the way, introducing him to strange twists and turns which would come to define Neil's restless nature. Hence Rust Never Sleeps. Perhaps the most perfect blend of live and studio material, Neil and his Crazy band of horses ruminate on life spent on the road with a spate of weary tales alternating between lost friendships, Native history and the changing of circumstances both controlled and uncontrolled. For most, it would be a long while before Neil reached these heights again yet scaling them serves as an example of his needing new terrains to roam through. While the thrill was not gone, the rust that was left behind would engrain itself into the dirt pretty deep. My my, hey hey, hey hey, my my.

Great album, shows two great sides of Neil young his folksy side and is rockin side!

One of the greatest.

This is a transitionary album for Young and you can hear it. The way the album bookends My My, Hey Hey with Hey Hey, My My and adjusting the clean acoustic with the electric that's full of reverb and sounding like it's almost falling apart. This album isn't a hit on every track but seeing him grow as an artist and expressing new themes in his writing helps give this album weight. His ability to take two guitars and make it sound so strong is something missing from a ton of overproduced music. If someone rates it lower I understand and don't hold it against them.

Before this experiment I had never listened to much Neil Young. I often remember him trying to sell a digital audio player with superior audio quality, and me rolling my eyes. Although after hearing the audio quality of his albums time and time again blowing me away; maybe he was not so crazy. I'm not sure yet if this is my favorite of his albums yet(time will tell), but it's pretty darn good. The way he plays guitar and his song writing is on another level. In this current world of cookie cutter singing competition vocalists, He has a unique voice and I welcome it. The album structure is pretty cool and keeps things interesting.

Absolutely fantastic

Proto-grunge hell yeah. Fuck Joe Rogan.

I was familiar with "hey hey, my my" from a Chromatics cover. I knew that it wasn't an original song by them, but never listened to the original. I am really happy that I have heard them now and the concept of there being two versions for the beginning and end of this album is just genius and so so beautiful. Overall I really enjoyed this album. 💙🖤

A great one!

My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) is the hit. It's better to burn out than to fade away is an all time lyric. It's interesting that later in the song he says it's better to burn out than to rust, I wonder if old rock stars feel that same way now. This is how folk rock should sound. Few songwriters can make you value both the story they are telling and what they are really trying to say at the same time. Pocahontas would be called cultural appropriation today. Neil Young's voice outside the context of his music would be terrible, it's crazy to think it worked with Buffalo Springfield and CSNY. You can hear the punk influence on Sedan Delivery...better to meet the times where they are than fade away. Black Francis heard Sedan Delivery and thus the Pixies were born. Hard rocking Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) to end the album. Having different versions bookend the album is an interesting touch and leaves me wondering which version I like better (I think it's Into the Black).

Meisterwerk! Neil ist einer meiner absoluten Favoriten.

"Rust Never Sleeps" is the 10th studio album by Canadian-American singer-songwriter Neil Young and his third with American band Crazy Horse. The album features both studio and live tracks with most songs recorded live and overdubbed in the studio while other songs originated in the studio. The concept "rust never sleeps" came from his tour to avoid artistic complacency and to try more progressive, theatrical approaches to performing live. The album received universal high praise and, commercially, it reached #8 in the US and #13 in the UK. The first side is the acoustic side and opens with "Hey Hey. My My (Out of the Blue)." That acoustic guitar intro. A great harmonica interlude and outro. Young said he was inspired to write this while playing with Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh who said "Yeah, rust never sleeps." "It's better to burn out than fade away." Don't get complacent in music. Young wrote "Thrasher" while traveling the roads of New Mexico. And, being on the road seems to be an allegory for life and especially the end of the hippie era. He also gives a good dis for his former CSNY bandmates. Self backing vocals are added to "Pochontas." Very poetic and tells of the destruction of the country by commercialism and of the Native Americans. The song was written just after Marlon Brando had a Native American woman accept his Oscar. Well, Young, Brando and Pochontas are sitting around the campfire at the end. The second electric side opens with "Powderfinger." Melodic, great backing vocals and a great guitar chorus and solo. It tells the story of a young man who attempts to protect his family against the gunboats and pays the ultimate price. "Sedan Delivery" goes from fast to slow to even faster and is another song influenced by Devo. Reverbing guitar, layered guitars. Surreal lyrics but I'm thinking it's about dealing drugs...probably other meanings too. The album comes to a close with the distorted, blasting guitars in "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)." There's a great "dirty" feeling to this. A searing solo. We started soft and end kicking and screamming. This album is loaded with great songs. The lyrics are mystical, allegorical and personal. Both sides are melodic. The second side is scorching with some of his best guitar work. The first, acoustic side is no less powerful with some of his best lyrics. This album ranks very high in my Neil Young discography and is a must listen.

Always good music from Neil Young

Awesome. A pioneer of American punk that I didn’t know went that hard at all!

Top 20

part live and part in studio, this is a milestone in contemporary music

Шикарный

Great songs, great writing, great music. Folky Neil and rocky Neil in one package with a great band.

Quality

Not as good as Dume, which features intense noisy versions of a lot of these songs, but still a career high for him, his best songwriting and best playing. A+

I love Young Neil ❤️❤️❤️

Beautiful guitar and Thrasher paints a vivid picture. Opening track kills. I can't 100% tell if the track Pocahontas is legitimately insensitive in 2024 or a clever commentary on white saviorism; Young seems like such a clever songwriter, I'd go with the latter. Welfare Mother's and Sedan Delivery are pure working class anthems. Overall, this album feels like it was made for the average worker, rusting in the sun.

Side 1 is nearly perfect. Beautiful folk rock songs with a punk attitude that only Neil Young can do with such flare and gravitas. Side 2 is harder rocking with lots of Neil Youngs trademark distortion and beautiful lyrical turns. This is a 5 star album for me without question. (On a personal level I can never listen to Neil Young the same way after his "stance" on Covid, Spotify and Joe Rogan. Neil Young went from principled iconoclast to corporate sellout in one misguided statement. I don't know if it was motivated by his record company, money, fear or some misguided sense of community but seeing Neil Young come out on the side of censorship and the government line made me extremely sad)

Do I like Neil Young? I think so!!

Ok so I’m going to review this album by mainly talking about another album I started typing that this is probably the best live album not recorded by Johnny Cash in a prison, but had a strange sense of deja vu. I then realised this was because I made the same claim in my review of Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged record, which was a sadly ironic connection considering Cobain quoted the opening track from Rust Never Sleeps in his suicide note Morbidity aside, Rust Never Sleeps is a stunning live album (ok, a quick caveat - it’s about 80% a live album. There were some studio overdubs to the live recordings, and two of the songs seem to have been entirely studio based but just bear with me ok). I’m often very critical of live albums that just sound like weaker or messier versions of their studio-recorded counterparts, and the best live albums are the ones that bring a unique element to the songs that couldn’t previously be captured - whether this is raucous energy improved by interacting with a live crowd, virtuosic solos and jamming aided by the interplay with other band members and honing in on the atmosphere from the audience, or a complete change in style to the studio recordings (in Nirvana’s case, a more cut-back and acoustic approach inspired by the ‘Unplugged’ gimmick). In the case of Rust Never Sleeps, there is no purely studio alternative to compare to - this barrage of scuzz is as clean as these songs get. Pocahontas and Sail Away still sound serene, but the B-side with Powderfinger and the closer Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) boasts dark, menacing ballads with distorted riffs, and the album as a whole commonly focuses on dying young and leaving a legacy. With this heavier punk-inspired sound, which was much slower and doomier than a lot of punk at the time, the acoustic singer-songwriter legend Young effectively invented grunge on one of the greatest live albums in history. The genre was then popularised by Nirvana, who redefined what the genre could be by taking more of an acoustic singer-songwriter’s approach on one of the greatest live albums in history. Hey hey, my my. Rock and roll can never die

I can't hear this album with fresh ears--I associated it very strongly with a particular time and place and love it though I wonder how well songs like "Pocahontas" have aged. Still, it was great to hear it again this morning!

Excellent, rock at its best, great guitar sound!

Could this be Neil Young's finest work? I may be a 'Harvest' head like the lot of you, and I have wallowed in the Ditch Period like my brothers and sisters before me, and I even have expressed affection for his later period works, such as 'Prairie Wind' and 'Le Noise.' But honestly, if you are looking to understand what makes Neil Young special - this deeply frustrating, mercurial man who bends to the will of no one else but his own - then 'Rust Never Sleeps' could be it. 'Live Rust' may be a proper entry point due to its Greatest Hits-like setlist, but 'Rust Never Sleeps' so beautifully captures all of his glaring contradictions, for better or for worse (but mostly better). It's this exploration of his interiority with his truly masterful guitar playing (that might be his greatest asset) in conjunction with his ability to operate as the de facto leader in any musical unit he inhabits, harnessing the power of a full-blown musical band under the singularity of a musical vision - his own. I mean, this is the same dude who began his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame acceptance speech with "it's been a solo trip." Jesus Christ. We've all heard it: "it's better to burn out/than to fade away." Many have tried to grapple at what this means and many have failed. And many of course have placed larger aims on this one statement to summarize an entire generation's futility and collapse of their own ideals. And one person took this statement tragically to heart. I'm not even sure if I know what it means, but I know that Neil is a shrewd observer of the world around him and the world inside him (no literary sensibility with Neil, unlike his peers Joni Mitchell (at first), Leonard Cohen, and Bob Dylan. I'm CONVINCED that Neil Young hasn't read a book since the Johnson administration) and the world inside him seems to operate on a different level than the rest of us. And so with this statement, Neil projects a persona (that was already rumbling beneath the surface) that is more humble, less self-indulgent than his peers (no 'Woodstock' performance for him), seemingly more accepting of a future of rock and roll that would not have any room for him. And it nearly didn't, if it wasn't for this exact frame-of-mind that would endear him to a new generation of punk and post-punk musicians and thereby ushering a new era for Neil in which he was praised, touted, and given the red carpet treatment for his late 80s/90s comeback. But unlike Lou Reed's and Bob Dylan's resurgence in this era, Neil's was also entrenched within a larger musical shift. Neil wasn't just an influence on Sonic Youth, he was their peer, and had no pretentions on the importance of this designation to project this new, flattened structure. "Powderfinger" may be one of very best live recordings. Has there been any other artist that has reflected on the (renewed, repeated) profundity of being and FEELING a certain age? "Old Man" would be the most famous example of this ("twenty-four and there's so much more"). But to paraphrase another singer-songwriter who he's often compared to, in "Powderfinger," he was so much older then, he's younger than that now. ("So the powers that be left me here to do the thinkin'/and I just turned twenty-two/I was wonderin' what to do/The closer they got/the more those feelings grew"). Thank you DEVO for your efforts. A+

One of my favourites, and possibly his best album. I was so glad to see it back on Spotify, and listened on repeat until I ran out of time. A precursor to grunge, and not just because Kurt quoted lyrics from it. The combination of live recording with studio tidying up works really well, allowing to get the raw energy of a live set with the distinct and mistake-free fidelity of a studio take. Why do more people not use this as a technique?

Neil Young levert altijd sfeervolle muziek af. Live deze keer. Kant A is akoestisch, op kant B mag er elektrisch geragd worden. Lekker hoor. Kennelijk is er iets waardoor ik Neil nog geen 5 had gegeven. Dus nu maar een keer, want dit is toch een mooie doorsnee van 's mans kunnen.

hier past maar 1 woord : perfect!

Great album. Love Neil & the horse

This is a bona fide classic, with rocking numbers, and more sensitive songs too, like Sail Away. Of course, there are the (in)famous My My Hey Hey Blue…Black songs—one acoustic, the other electric—and my favourite: Powderfinger. The album is filled with great performances, lyrics and music. I can’t recommend it enough.

My My, Hey Hey (both versions) plus Powderfinger makes this a 5.

This was my first Neil Young album. Even after all these years it's one of my favorite.

guay

Just a fucking great album, top to bottom

I've never been a huge Neil Young fan, but this one slaps from front to back. A must listen.

One of my friends said of this, when I told them which album I'd been given, "it's one of the good ones." He's right, it's one of the best.

Between a 4 and a 5. Not my favourite Neil Young album, but some belters on here.

Really great. Holy cow. Did he invent grunge ?!!

One of the best albums ever made and a soundtrack of my life. I listened to this album in high school as I was learning to play guitar and finding my own style for songwriting. I listened In college while sitting on dorm room floors with people I had just met. I played the songs too loud live on stage and in beer soaked basements. I sang the songs quietly with friends around the campfire after our kids were put to bed. I contemplated the different meaning of the words as I sent my kid off to college and went through middle age. I will continue to listen as I head toward the autumn of my life.

The perfect live album and a great encapsulation of the breadth of Neil Young’s styles.

Out of the blue & into the black

Mein liebstes Album von ihm❤️